Sorry for being absent. We’ve been wallowing, both in the terrible, miserable, excessively rainy weather, and in what feels like the beginning of a terrible cold virus.

We did manage to get our Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving; we bought a lovely fat one from the local nursery, and promptly had to buy several more sets of lights for it.  It’s far bigger than what we usually get.

I love having my little straw goat back out! Which reminds me, have you been keeping an eye on the Gavlebocken?

The kittens, of course, have been ecstatic for such a fantastic new toy! Thank heavens our friend Kim had a cat tree for us to keep them (somewhat) out of trouble.

Dilly is happy to be on the top, where she can see the birds from just inches away. Poppet and Widget like to hang out below, occasionally taking swipes at the long orange tail hanging down from above them.

Today they’re all happy to see the sun again, and have warm spots to stretch out.  It’s been pretty dark and nasty the last several days, adding to the overall malaise that I seem to be afflicted with. Even my knitting is growing at a snail’s pace.

The dogs have been tracking in an epic amount of mud (and poop, let’s be honest here), and everything just has felt damp and gross. We’ve all been parking ourselves close to the Christmas tree for some relief from the yuck that has been this week.

Against my better judgment, I’ve even left the front gate open so the goats could stay on the front porch (they just don’t want to use the calf hutches we have for them) and to keep myself out of the rain when I let the dogs out. They’ve broken several posts on the railings, and I don’t think I need to tell you what it looks like out there now.

But I will show you:

That’s right outside the front door. It keeps getting wetter and more ground in by the day. Fancy!

So imagine, now, the dogs walking through this to get in the house……and tracking it in with them.  On the plus side (if you can call it that) the kittens enjoy batting around the little round goat poops.

This is the reality of farm life.  We like to capture and share beautiful, idealized, sanitized pictures of life on the farm, but the reality is so much dirtier, smellier, poopier.

Still, I wouldn’t trade it.

What I WOULD trade, is this headache and sore throat.  There’s too much to enjoy about December for me to feel this way!